Pho-King Great Food in St. Paul

Vin:

Destiny's Children

(Note-  This is an homage to the worst writer ever: Sid Hartman.  I'm writing it as if he were watching the WTF Crew eat.  So it is Vin writing as Sid would about Vin.  And no, Michael Cain was not there, so this could be a dream.)

Many of the geniuses in town think WTF is dead.  I knew they would come back.  If any other blog team had half the problems that they do, they would quit.  They've been unlucky.  There's a reason these guys keep eating out.

This looked like an awful place to eat.  This crew said they like hole in the wall places.  Well, Destiny Cafe didn't even have a front.  The front is the back.  Still, WTF showed up.  They came in four different cars.  Some people out there think they hate each other and that is why they don't review more, but that was not the case.  They were laughing and looked like each had a few beers before.  Let me tell you something, to even walk in this place showed class.  

And they did.  Bud Grant once told me once it's not the coach it's the players.  Just win baby.  Well, these players were the only non-Hmong people in there.  That didn't bother them.  The Hmong weren't bothered either.  Maybe the waitress was.  There was a lot of confusion and the ordering took a long time.  It wasn't their fault.  It wasn't her fault either.  It was just the way the ball bounces.   Most people I know would have left.  These guys are tough and they have heart and ordered beer.

I've been in this business for 56 years and I can tell when people know what they are doing.  Well, these guys are for real.  They talked politics and wondered about Jackass 3.  Then when it came to crunch time they ate.  And then they showed what they were all about.  Vin loved the Namtook Beef Brisket and raved about the Hmong Sausages.  He was pretty clueless about how to eat the Pho' Destiny Lub Paj.  No one serves a Pho with crab, shrimp, pork, beef, and meatballs.  This place does.  So you have to take your hat off to the guy for eating it and liking it.

I'm sure I'll get my share of criticism for writing this hidden behind a poster of Hmong War Generals.  But I needed to see what these guys go through.  If you only knew half of what they go through being them, you'd understand.  The end of the meal came and they walked right up to the cash register.  True to their nature, they befriended the owner and threw down 4 twenties.  Everyone was smiling.  Then they got in their four cars and drove off.  All you people who jumped off this bandwagon are going to wish you got back on. 3 tines.

Drew:

I'm not proud to admit this, but the likelihood that you will see my mugshot on a police blotter for having carnal knowledge of a pig just went up a few percentage points, specifically-due to Destiny Cafe's corruptingly-delicious Hmong sausage.  Before entering this lecherous place I had already harbored a deep-seated and profound affection for swine, but this Hmong eatery brought me to a frightening place emotionally.

It was a setup, though.  The owners clearly designed this place to create an atmosphere which blurs the lines between gastronomic and carnal pleasures.  The pork belly suggestively-spinning on the spit under voluptuous fluorescent lighting, combined with the salaciously-subliminal images and tones of Laotian karaoke are simply too powerful for one man and his fragile Midwestern moralities.  Sure, I feel manipulated, but even now, teetering on the precipice of becoming a level-3 sex offender in a PETA database, I have no regrets.

I recommend Destiny Cafe for diners with a sexual-identity firmly grounded in their own species. (4 tines)

Trick:

Despite my repeated pleas, I cannot wring a copy of Destiny Café’s menu from my fellow bloggers, which I initially interpreted as a not unreasonable signal to get off my ass and take my own notes during our next restaurant outing. But then an e-mail this afternoon from our editor-in-chief, Adolf Hitler, got to the heart of the matter: I was taking too long to compose my “next Steinbeck novel.” OK, I get it; I write too much. Since nothing could get me as exercised as the utter stupidity of our last experience at the Gopher Bar—and indignation is the cause of most overlong writing—I’ll keep this (relatively) short.

I loved Destiny Café. It is everything this blog was supposed to be about. It is a small, family-owned establishment where the food is made fresh and the ingredients are locally sourced. It is also tucked away in the unlikeliest of spots, making it sparsely reviewed by the city’s Uptown-loving food critics. In fact, it is the location that is half the magic. Technically on University Avenue, the entrance is on the back side of the building housing the Hmong Cultural Center and not visible from the street. You can cut through the parking lot for Johnny Baby’s Bar if you want a direct route, but for a more enjoyable cultural diversion, I recommend going in through the front door, which takes you by the cultural center’s grocery store and other small shops. (For the full-Monty Hmong experience, get your toenails polished and your hair feathered at the ladies’ salon before the meal.) The dining room itself is exactly what you’d want and expect out of the experience. It has the atmosphere of a miniature karaoke dance hall and the lighting of a CIA rendition chamber. In other words, for the dollar’s worth of gas you have to expend on the trip, you are instantly transported to Southeast Asia. That’s right—you can still enjoy international travel during the recession!

And what about the food? The few online reviews that already exist for Destiny Café describe its pho, whose blend of cilantro and coconut gave them a delicious

Thai flavor I didn’t anticipate. These reviews also speculate on the provenance of menu item #25, the pig uteri (Latin plurals belong in medical books, not menus, so we stayed clear of that one). But they don’t mention what for me were the best and most savory items of all. The Hmong are a highland people, right? Well, what do you get when you go as far away from the Middle East as possible and then throw in a highland culture? That’s right, you get pork . And for my money—and believe me, Destiny Café didn’t require me to spend much of it—the pork sausages were among the best I’ve had in the Twin Cities. Yep, better than the overpriced maple-syrup-infused crap at Hell’s Kitchen and way better than the stuff the Gasthof calls

German. The pork bellies were even more wonderful, perfectly oiled and salted and just a little crispy. Even if you’ve had bypass surgery, you’ll have to treat yourself to those.

Overall rating for Destiny Café: 4 tines

Curtis:

Before dining on a beautiful autumn evening, the WTF cult take a brief sojourn to The Dubliner Pub for a pint, a chance to regroup, make a food plan, enjoy time out. So naturally, the first half-pissed, needy drunk we run into decides to tell us his pathetic, fucktard life story. Over and over and over again. Why is it whenever we go out some dumbass gets brave and shares too fucking much? I don’t give a shit about your wife, your mother-in-law, your brother or really any aspect of your sad, little, BORING life. Please tell it to the light post outside the bar. Unless it’s interesting, like you did smack with Miles Davis or banged someone famous I’d be impressed with (and have visual proof), then go away.

On to the meat of the biscuit. We tried to get into Destiny Cafe last winter one Friday night but it seemed to be closed for a private event. My guess was cockfights, but I have no proof. At all. Tucked inside a little strip mall, you can come here for a meal and are then energized for the shops that surround the place. Pick up some groceries, enjoy some grooming, whatever floats yer boat. The food here is fantastic, the flavors were fresh, bold and prepared with care. The pho, curried beef, and especially the Hmong sausage were standouts. The staff was incredibly helpful and seemed genuinely interested in making sure our experience was enjoyable. I’d go back, and plan to, often. This may not be the most romantic place in the world, or provide that faux decor of being transported to another place or time, but if you love food, if you love good, fresh food, you’ll be well served at Destiny Cafe.

4 tines, baby.

Gopher Bar vs. Dean's Tavern Dogfight

First, a big beautiful thanks to all NONE OF YOU who showed up at the Gopher Bar for our live event. C'mon people, you think we do this shit for the free drugs and semi-clean groupies? That's part of it, but we really need our fans to start paying for our meals and loudly telling us how much you love us. Loud. So everyone can hear it. We know who you are, and we are not afraid to drink your fucking milkshake. If you know what I mean.

OK, on to the Gopher Bar. Jeezis, where to begin with this shithole? Walking inside, this place looks like every dank neighborhood tavern you've ever seen. It could be in Beloit, Wisconsin or Vineland, NJ or Arnold, MO. Doesn't really matter, it smells like Budweiser farts and bologna, has a bunch of ridiculous bar clutter over every square inch of the walls. You know the crap - smartass bumper stickers, photocopies of pathetic homemade attempts at political cartoons by one of the regulars (you know, like Obama and Osama totally making out or something, sonofabitch those are just a fucking riot!), shoddy sports memorabilia, partially working neon signs, a Confederate flag. Oh, that's precious, a Confederate flag. I guess these guys are just big fucking rebels, huh? You know, "stick it to the man, I'm me and if you don't like me go fuck yourself. We're a smartass bar of regular people, warts and all, that's our appeal. Get it?" Oh wait, there's another Confederate flag, and another, and a sticker of a Confederate flag, and more Confederate flag bullshit everywhere. Christ, was there a Going Out Of Business sale at the local Klan warehouse or are these people just a bunch of insecure, racist, cocksuckers? 

I get the whole punk rock, screw you, don't-like-it-then-get-the-fuck-outta-here attitude. I applaud it, I encourage it, I hope my kids have that healthy skepticism of everything in their world. Lord knows we need it. If no one has the balls to be themselves and tell others to get screwed we'd be living in a zombie world where everyone is a milquetoast Tim Pawlenty. Now THAT would be terrifying and depressing at the same time. But there's a difference between proudly waving your freak flag and just being a pathetic, white, angry VICTIM trying to live out some sad little Buford T. Pusser/Walking Tall fantasy. Go ahead and put the original 1973 Walking Tall starring Joe Don Baker movie in your netflix queue, you'll thank me. These dipshits need to wake up and smell the black and brown coffee. No matter how many asshole flags you put up, your lily white asses aren't going to one day crawl out of your little hovel and emerge into a pretendo world where everyone looks like The Waltons. 

Oh, did I mention there's also a sign that says they SUPPORT THE TROOPS? Well fuck, they support the troops fer chrissakes! Damn straight. They can't be assholes anymore, can they? I salute you, Gopher Bar! Why don't you have a fundraiser concert for the troops and maybe Rand Paul while you're at it. Hire these guys:

Seriously, what the fuck is up with people like Rand Paul and the Ayn Randroids? Isn't Ayn Rand just an earlier version of the Tony Robbins rah-rah bullshit snake oil? After age 17, do real people take that retardo-pseudo-intellectual bullshit seriously? I refuse to believe they do. I can't accept that kind of delusion seriously exists in otherwise intelligent humans. Ayn Rand wanted to sell poor writing to gullible, pimply kids. It worked, she made a fortune, now grow the fuck up and get out of Hobbitland and into the real world, dumbass.

Anyway, walking in a little late I notice two of the WTF tines have cozied up to the bar with either a lonely regular or just some dude who wandered in on his way to Arkansas. The guy actually seems pretty cool, he kinda looks like Harry Crews, except he's not one of the greatest goddamned fiction writers in American history, he's a food carney here for Grand Ol Days this weekend. Go ahead, reserve a copy of Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews at the library, you'll thank me. God bless this food carney. He's from Oklahoma by way of Beaumont Texas and claims to make some damn fine gyros with tanzeeky sauce. What kind of damn life has he had to end up traveling the country in an RV selling gyro meat and tanzeeky sauce? I wish I had the balls to find out and live that kind of adventure. I've never had balls for anything. Complete coward, risk averse. I remember one summer in college I was hanging out with some other dipshits who wanted to get together and do some acid. I was all like "fuck yes! that will be awesome!" Then they went out and got it, I completely pussied out and never showed up to the party and was too mortified to ever speak to them again. I'd heard all those stories about people doing mushrooms or blotter and never coming back from their trip. They ended up being drooling idiots stuck in a series of medical experiments or ending up on hobo fight videos. No sir, not me! I knew I was destined for that mid-level managerial job with a deee-lux office cube out in the middle of nowhere suburbia. Mmm, success never smelled better. Hold on while I impale my eyeballs with these pencils, kay?

So in addition to all the adorable surroundings and the three customers in the bar, for some reason there's a table full of Chinese takeout. Apparently this is a buffet of some sort or something? I'm not really sure and I didn't have the balls (naturally) to ask the bartender why there was a table of open Chinese takeout in the middle of this place supposedly known for the best Coney Island dogs in town? I'm so fucking confused by this place, I just want to order a Coney dog and beer to get my mind right.

I ordered the Coney dog with the works. That means you get shredded cheese in addition the regular (toasted bun, hot dog, sauce, and onions). I don't know if all Coney dogs are like this, I have no experience in this fine ouvre, but this is a tiny little dog. Like grocery store, standard issue size dog. What the hell? Oh well, let's eat. So what can I say, this was really disappointing. I couldn't detect any flavor in the Coney sauce, maybe a little ketchup and sawdust, that's about it. Three bites and it's gone. This is it? What the fuck is going on? I could have my 4-year-old create a better hot dog than this crap. Toast a bun, boil a hot dog, a little sauce, a little frozen shredded cheese and some sprinkles of onion shards. Deeply underwhelming. I give this sad little hell-hole zero tines.

Now get the funk out!


Drew:

I played golf with Curtis at Columbia.  We finished right around noon and I was hungry.  Right across the street was Chimborazo, the Ecuadorian place these assholes reviewed without me a couple months ago (see below).  They all loved it, so I wanted to give it a try.  This is my review of Chimborazo (‘cause Gopher Bar isn't worth reviewing…don’t go there).

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a food service snob.  I’ve worked in the industry before, so I feel I can make a somewhat valid claim.  Nothing drives me more insane than waitstaff, who feel like they are doing you a favor by waiting on you.  The humble, subservient demeanor necessary to be a good server is almost completely gone in America.  I don’t know where it went.  Does it have something to do with the increasingly fragile American ego, and our expanding feelings of economic entitlement?  I don't know, but it sucks donkey balls.

The evolution of the tip is the emblematic of this change.  The concept of a tip as an “extra” financial incentive to be a good server is long gone.  It is now expected and often added to bills automatically.  In a brilliant coup for restaurant and bar owners everywhere, they successfully convinced their employees to get mad at customers, not them, if their pay is not sufficient.  It's an employer's wet dream!  Not only do they NOT have to deal with labor unions, if their employees are upset, they blame someone else!  Along with the loss of gratuity's meaning, the decline of good service has slid along with it.

My angry-nostalgic-old-guy digression above is to point out that gratitude for your patronage DOES still exist in the Twin Cities.  This was the startling case at Chimborazo.  From the moment I darkened the entryway of cute and clean restaurant, to my exiting the door an hour later, I felt as though the establishment was truly appreciative that I was there. My server was attentive, helpful, and genuinely happy to be serving me.  I didn't feel like I was being pressured to turn the table over for him.  I didn't feel like if I didn't order enough, I would get a hidden eye roll.  And, by the way, the food was great!  The churrasco was flavorful as hell, and the empanada was crisp and delicious.

Folks, don’t give your money to business owners or their staffs who don’t value your hard-earned money.  Who cares how cool, trendy, or popular a place is?  With each dollar you spend you are making a vote for what kind of people you support, and what kind of service you receive.  I say, vote for Chimborazo!

I recommend Chimborzao for fat-fingered Wall Street traders, and anyone that hasn't used the terms "snowpocalypse" or "snowmageddon" in the last 8 months.  (4 tines)

Trick:

If you love you country, then you won’t want to eat at the Gopher Bar.  Sure, they display a “We Support Our Troops” sign on the side of their building for all the world to see, but if you actually go inside, you quickly find that the guys running the joint are America haters and traitors and, apparently, too dim-witted to realize it.  To start with, there are the caricatures of President Obama as a terrorist, one poster even melding his famous campaign poster with an image of Osama bin Laden.  Never mind that this execrable smear is directed against the commander in chief of the troops the bar’s owners claim to support.  And let’s also forget that in Afghanistan, the very place where bin Laden planned the 9/11 attacks, President Obama has doubled our troop commitment and that in Pakistan, the very place where bin Laden is almost certainly hiding today, President Obama has tripled the number of drone attacks.  Facts don’t matter.  If you are uncomfortable with Obama’s domestic agenda—a discomfort which in some measure I share—then let’s just characterize him as a murderous sociopath.  (It also makes it easier if you’re uncomfortable with his skin color.  But more on the race thing below.) 

There are also the snarky little bumper stickers comparing the present-day United States to the U.S.S.R. (replacing the stars of the U.S. flag with a hammer and sickle is a particularly affecting flourish).  Do these reflect real political views, or are they merely an idiot’s hyperbole?  Either way, it’s odd that the bar owners see no incongruity between them and their professed support of our troops.  Would a person presenting himself as an American patriot really support an army that is fighting in defense of a communist tyranny? 

Then there are the Confederate battle flags.  When you first walk in, you see one or two and figure that it is just your standard honky-tonk kitsch.  But as you scan your surroundings, you realize that they’re everywhere.  There are big ones and small ones.  Some are emblazoned on souvenirs; others adorn bumper stickers.  One accompanies a “League of the South” emblem (whatever the hell that is); another accompanies a banner proclaiming “Southern pride.”  But the real humdingers are the ones on the walls, which are as large as blankets and bright as bunting.  There is even one colored in the maroon and gold, a tip of the hat to the bar’s namesake. 

So let me get this right: the same business that is so ostentatious about standing up for America goes out of its way to glorify an armed rebellion against a duly elected American government and the one period in the our history when the Union was truly in jeopardy?  It doesn’t make much sense, does it?  Worse still, let’s remember what that rebellion was really all about: slavery. 

Wait a minute, you say.  Wasn’t slavery kind of an afterthought of the Civil War?  Wasn’t the Confederacy really fighting against overweening government and in defense of such good old American value as states’ rights and individual liberty?  Don’t believe it.  This is one of the great historical frauds perpetrated on the American people, perhaps a useful one as the country was trying to reconcile in the aftermath of the war but one that it’s long past time to dispel.  Beyond the gloss of lofty rhetoric, the Confederacy was, at its core, fighting to preserve slavery (somehow, given their anti-Obama vitriol, I think the Gopher Bar’s owners instinctively know this).  To the extent that the fight was about states’ or individual rights, it was about the right to buy, sell, own, and transport slaves. 

But don’t take my word for it (I’m just a friggin’ blogger after all).  Just take the word of the Confederacy’s own leaders.  It’s all right there in their Declarations of Causes of Secession, which, to mirror the 1776 Declaration of Independence, the seceding states issued as public justifications of their break.  Let’s start with excerpts from South Carolina’s, since that was the first and served as a model for others.  Among the many nuggets: 

The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals.

These “fugitives” are runaway slaves, of course.  The “service or labor claimed” from them is invoked as blithely as an employment contract, while the concept of interstate transit is used as it might be for mules, lumber, or coal.   

Here are a few more of South Carolina’s complaints:  

• Those States [of the North] have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property [of holding slaves]…; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States.

• A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

• This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States [of the North] by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens.

Texas being Texas, its Declaration of Causes was even plainer about the preservation of slavery and the proper place of black Americans: 

• She [Texas] was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.

• In all the non-slave-holding States…the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party…based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color--a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

Did you get that?  Slavery is a “beneficent” system, and the doctrine of equality of all men is “debasing.”  But my favorite excerpt comes from Mississippi’s declaration, whose authors, apparently sensing that it would be tough to justify slavery on moral grounds, decided to go with the melanin angle: 

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.  

Wow, nature really is imperious!  Anyway, you get the idea.  You can find plenty more excerpts like this on your own if you have the time (Georgia’s declaration is especially fun). 

So there you have it.  The owners of the Gopher Bar are seditionists and racists who malign the commander in chief during a time of war and unwittingly promote communist dictatorship.  But hey, don’t worry, they have a “We Support Our Troops” sign. 

And oh yeah, in case you willing to overlook all these faults for the sake of a good Coney dog, don’t bother.  The Gopher Bar’s Coneys are moderately tasty (the toasted buns are a nice touch), but not much better than the hot dogs any bachelor could cook up at home and not nearly as good as the Schweigerts you’ll get a Twins game.  If you have a hankering for a good dog and can’t get to a game (or into my pants), go to the Wienery.  

Score: 0 tines

Vin:

The Gopher Bar is like the driver of a conversion van with a busty leather-clad vixen carrying an axe and riding a dragon airbrushed on the side.  At first you think this person is going to be quirky and fun, kind of like a relative who played too much D+D.  Then you see their moustache and hear them talk and watch them a little before realizing they are annoying and creepy.  Soon you grab your family and flee before being made into a lampshade or a hot dog.

I love dive bars and anyplace that has a sign that reads “Hey! How about an ice cold bottle of shut the fuck up?” instantly starts earning points with me.  I thought that the Gopher Bar might be a blast as a result. The Gopher Bar is well known for their Coney Dogs. I ordered one without cheese to better taste what makes this different from a chili dog.  Evidently, a Coney Dog doesn’t have beans in their sauce.  It arrived before me in an instant and it was a disappointment on many levels.  The hot dog was plain, the sauce tasteless, and the onions bland.  About the only thing interesting and warm was the bun because it was toasted and buttered.  Overall, there was more taste in my Grain Belt than the food.

Then I started to look around the place.  It is entertaining on first glance.  Their allegiance to the Gopher Hockey Team and the Confederate Flag (!) is legion.  Um, they only take cash.  The collection of offensive bumper stickers is impressive, but then you start talking to the folks who work there and connect the dots.  They really mean it.  They are a bunch of Confederate, anti-immigrant, large testiciled, hockey playing, Obama-hating, creditless, jockstrap wearing bigots.  The thing is, they are not even funny.  Character and attitude is one thing, but this place is a shithole staffed by assholes.  Avoid it. -Vin

½ tine

St. Paul Dogfighting

Come out and join the four twisted tines of What The Fork Twin Cities on Thursday, May 20, 2010 as we enable the ever-popular food 'war' schtick between Dean's Tavern and the Gopher Bar. Apparently there's a Coney Dog fight a-brewin' between these two posh, snooty establishments - and we're going to show up and eat at both places. We'll be arriving at Gopher Bar at 7:00, here's what we look like in case we blend in with the crowd too much and you need a reference:

Gandhi Mahal - Minneapolis

Phone-it-in Haiku review version

Vin:

Bleating tender Goat

Why do you not make a sound

From sated stomach?

Curtis:

shiva in the league

my vindaloo rising fast

fantasy football

Trick:

Big-ass bowls of meat

Gandhi: vegetarian

Clever marketing!

Drew:

non-violent goat's
burning disobedience
soothed by Kingfisher

You see, the problem/good thing about Gandhi Mahal was that everything was good, mostly very good, some not so good, but not mind-blowing great. We ordered off the menu, trying to go upscale from the usual buffet trough. The bread sampler was a highlight, the meat dishes were perfectly tender and flavorful but not really distinct from one another. The rice, disappointing. The Pakora sampler platter seemed thrown together from old items, not freshly fried as an order.

To be honest, I'd rather have a buffet option where I can pile on 18 different dishes, hoard all the naan I can stuff in my face, and waddle out in a semi-comatose, but deeply spiritual state. 

Mirror of Korea, St. Paul or It's All One Meal, Man

Menu sampled:
Bul Go Gi (sliced beef marinated in chef’s sauce)
Go Dung U Gui (salted mackerel)
Soon dae Gook (Korean pork sausage & blood cake w/tripe and veggies)
Kim Chee Chi Gae (spicy kim chee stew w/pork, tofu and veggies)
Dahk Bok Uhm (hot & spicy stir fry w/chicken and assorted veggies)
Man Du Twee Gim (fried Korean dumplings)
Bin Dae Thuck (traditional Korean fried vegetable pancakes)

Drew:
Food is experiential. Take a second and think of a memorable meal. More than likely the circumstances surrounding the meal were as important as the food itself.

“My favorite dessert was that thing with strawberries we ate on our honeymoon on the terrace watching the sunset…”

“I’ve never had a steak as good as that night my friends came over and we opened the good wine.”

“To this day, I can’t smell zucchini without getting nauseous, due to that one drunken night at the frat house.”

“The taste of cabbage reminds me of being molested by Uncle Jerry.”

If you accept this premise, I recommend Mirror of Korea (MoK). Take someone you’re just beginning to date. It’s the perfect test. If they can’t enjoy the adventure of the pungent, putrescence of kim chee with tofu (#36), or the slightly anal-flavored blood cake & tripe (#30), then dump them right then and there. Why? Two reasons. First, you’ll dodge being trapped in a relationship with a closed-minded, incurious, bigot who won’t be accepting enough to understand when you eventually develop a late-life predilection for having your taint tickled by egg whisks. Second, you’ll sidestep marriage to an inevitably corpulent creature that associates food with love, and therefore tries to orally fill the gaping hole daddy made by drinking scotch in his underwear while watching Mexican wrestling and hitting on your friends.

I don’t eat a lot of Korean food, so I can’t tell you whether it was good by comparison. However, the tastes and smells were new (yet ancient), challenging, and enlivening. I recommend MoK for those who are intolerant of mundane foodstuffs and lactose. (3 tines)

Vin:
I know more about the clitoris than I do Korean food. That is not saying much. So it was with trepidation that I walked into Mirror of Korea. I normally would have done some research prior, but the WTF gang had only selected this as back-up once we arrived at our first place after closing. Mirror fit the criteria for the type of restaurant that we are looking for, having been around for 20 years and family owned, so why not. That brings to mind a larger question: How do you review a place when you have nothing to compare it against? If you've never had kim chee, and someone brings you deep-fried boxer briefs with guacamole, can you even make a worthwhile comment until you have a range of expectation? To me, the enjoyment of this entire WTF endeavor has been the adventure of getting out and trying something new and local. Jump in, order items that make a place famous and a few that you would never try alone, see what you like, and then write about it. At some places, and this one heads the list, it is more about the experience of trying something new than subtlety.

By far the greatest moment of the night was when the entrees arrived. We ordered liberally, and then it all came. By God, it was sensory anarchy. The frothing Kim Chee stews, with a whole mackerel, the reds and browns, and the smell of it all in front of me. This engendered no Pavlovian salavating. None of these foods was anything a white boy thought possible. All together it smelled like a marinated cat that had been boiled with a pair of old running shoes. The last thing I wanted to do was eat what was in front of me; my stomach and taste buds were in revolt, wishing for anything with the flavors from the homeland of Robbinsdale. Clearly, it was time to dig in. I was glad I did. The individual dishes were all a delight with one exception–and that is because I have a texture weakness. The mackerel was a little salty, but pleasing. The marinated beef was fantastic as well as was the chicken stir-fry; these two clearly were favorites with the university down the street. I also found myself going back for seconds on the spicy kim chee stew. The sour taste was wonderful, warming and it grew on you. About the only thing I didn't enjoy was the pork sausage stew with blood cakes. Actually, the broth in this stew was the best of the night. The tripe and blood cakes hit that texture that I find difficult to stomach: soft and chewy. I'd rather eat bugs before tripe (along with lutefisk, my two least favorite foods). I needed a whole Hite beer to get that tiny serving down.

Throw this all in with some helpful servers and endearing owners who came to check on the odd table eating blood cakes, and I'd go back to Mirror of Korea. It was a worthy choice for review; my reaction to that steaming and frothing table of food was worth it alone, especially after finding out how flawed those first impressions were. I don't know if I'd go as far as to crave this next week, but this is worth another visit. 2 out of 4 tines.

Curtis:
In the midst of another painfully long and cold winter, I was eager to head out to a relatively hidden restaurant in St. Paul for some steaming Pho, maybe a Banh Mi and Goi Cuon. Add to that a lot of booze, maybe some basement cockfighting, I was up for anything. After pulling into the nondescript parking lot and navigating to what is supposed to be the entrance in the back of a warehouse-type building, we find out they decided to shut down at 8:00 p.m. Really? Now I'm certain there's something delightfully sinister going on in there. Oh well, we'll save it for another review. Backup plan initiated, over to Mirror of Korea we go.

We arrived hungry, thirsty, and cold - but in good spirits. Our waiter could sense our hunger, or more likely, he was ready to end his work night and start his own weekend. Regardless, he was quick, attentive and extremely helpful. As usual, we tried to order a good mix of the menu, trying to include several meats along with a mix recommended by the staff. I should mention right away every single item that came to our plate seemed like it was completely fresh and just made. Nothing seemed like it was sitting around all night waiting for final prep.

For the appetizers, I thought the Bin Dac Thuck (traditional vegetable pancakes) were outstanding, quite a bit better than the Korean dumplings. The pancakes were crisp and hot on the outside, and soft and savory on the inside. I’m pretty fanatical about Asian dumplings, and those served here were only average.

So, on to the blood cake and tripe. At this point in the program I could pull out the phony Anthony Bourdain shtick about how modern American diners don’t know what they’ve been missing since giving up all the delights of feasting on each and every part of the carcass. Sometimes there’s a reason for that. Some parts taste better than other parts. Some parts don’t smell like they’ve been stored under Satan's scrotum for hundreds of years. As with most things in life, nothing is black and white, there’s a big gray area where most of the planet resides. The same can be said for the Soon Dae Gook (pork sausage and blood cake w/tripe and veggies). The tripe was good, a little chewy but pleasantly deep and earthy, a great complement to the bold broth it was served with. The blood cake threw me off a little bit, I was expecting blood sausage and figured it was a typo or some sort of misnomer. Actually it was soft and chewy, like cake. Bloody cake.

For me, the highlight of the meal was Go Dung U Gui (salted mackerel). The skin on the mackerel was extra crisp and salty, with a tender, flavorful flesh inside. Outstanding for loudly gnawing on with some ice cold Hite Korean lager on the side.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable, satisfying meal on another brutally cold winter night. Unfortunately, nothing made me say to myself “OMFG! Where have you been all my life!? I have to come here and eat (insert dish) every week until I die!” I will, however, definitely return for the pancakes, mackerel and beer.

Three out of four tines.

Trick:
Korea has always been something of a riddle to me. In Seoul you'll find international video game champions who rake in $300,000 a year because they were born with fast-twitch carpal flexors, but go 100 miles north and you'll find Dear Leader's heroic farmer cadres surviving by recycling latrine waste for fertilizer. There's also that peculiar language. If it's not related to Chinese and not related to Japanese, then where does it come from and why does the written text resemble the logograms of the alien language in V? And is it true that even in premodern times Korean people were always East Asia's tallest?

Though anthropologists, linguists, and historians have tried, I don't know that anyone will ever explain these mysteries definitively. But after my visit to Mirror of Korea, I've decided that someone had better explore the possibility of a link to Central Europe. For at least in culinary terms, the Korea I experienced for those two hours is where the steppe meets Szczecin, where Manchuria meets Malopolska. What was the Man Du Twee Gim, after all, if it wasn't a slightly tart version of peirogi? Like Polish dumplings, thy were pan-fried and stuffed with meat and light seasoning, but the vinegary soy dipping sauce made them even more delicious (and an even better accompaniment to beer).

The Go Dung U Gui took the Central European resemblances in a different direction. This mackerel dish was served simply and straight up for the fish lover: uncut, unfilleted, lightly grilled, and unadorned except for a kim chee side. It was how you might eat the day's catch along the Baltic coast. The kim chee was your sauerkraut, and the light salting was supposed to prepare your palate for the meat dishes, which were to be the heart of the meal.

The meat dishes more than matched this prelim. The sliced marinated beef with lettuce wraps (Bul Go Gi), a Korean mainstay, was served medium-well and still sizzling, which contrasted nicely with the crisp coldness of the lettuce. (Do you remember the McDonald's McDLT? You know, one side was hot, and the other side was cold. Well, it was that tasty.) The hot and spicy chicken stir-fry (Dahk Bok Uhm) was also a highlight, and unexpectedly so. You can get a hot and spicy chicken/pork/beef in any Asian restaurant, and no matter if it's Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai, the dish is almost always drowning in a salty, MSG-laden gravy that makes the meat and veggies a soggy afterthought. But Mirror of Korea did it a little differently. Tipping the hat to their Magyar-Slovak cousins, they concocted a sauce that combined Hoisin flavors with a subtle paprika-like quality. It was interesting and unusual, and unlike most Minnesotans, I mean that in a good way.

The only Central European parallel that didn't work out very well was our decision, on a lark, to try the pork sausage and blood cake with tripe. Since I love Hungarian blood sausage, I figured this would be one of those disgusting-sounding dishes that is actually delicious (a la fried liver or bone marrow on toast). But, no, it was just disgusting. The problem is that this wasn't just cooked blood over a filler, like blood sausage. As the menu said, it was blood cake. That's a lot of blood, especially when it's coagulated. Combined with the glandular consistency of tripe, it was a little like eating the flu.

But don't let the blood cake turn you off. Steer clear of it and order everything else. Mirror of Korea is a wonderful Twin Cities original. I give it 3 of 4 tines.